May 08, 2014

Advertising And Algebra

When my daughter was five years old -- before she could add or subtract -- I taught her algebra.

One day we were in the car. She must have heard some kids talking about it in kindergarten or heard some reference to it on Sesame Street because she suddenly asked me, "Dad, what's algebra?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," I said. "First I want to ask you a question. That cookie you're eating cost a dollar. How much would two cookies cost?"

She thought for a second, "I don't know...two dollars?"

"Right," I said. "How much would three cookies cost?"

"Three dollars?" she answered.

"Right," I said. "How much would ten cookies cost?" I asked.

"Ten dollars?"

"Bingo," I said.

"How much would a thousand cookies cost?"

"A thousand dollars!"

"You just learned algebra," I told her.

There's a concept in learning theory about "closing the circle." Closing the circle means taking the student almost fully around the idea, but leaving a gap for the student to fill in an insight or an answer.

The hypothesis is that if the student has to fill in the final gap, there will be a much greater chance that something will be learned rather than just heard.

This principle ought to be applied more liberally in advertising. We are always trying to force-feed a conclusion on consumers, when having the consumer draw her own conclusion would be a lot more effective.

I am convinced that advertising that is constructed in such a way as to make a case but leave the final logical leap to the viewer is more powerful.

This is not just true in advertising strategy, it is also true in execution. As Vinny Warren points out in this wonderful post, viewer attention can be enhanced by entering scenes late and leaving early. Not only is it better filmcraft, it requires the viewer to close the loop.

By the way, 13 years later that girl scored in the 96th percentile on her math SATs. Not that I'm the kind of parent who would brag about such things...

This is exactly why the "Minnesota School" print advertising of the 80s and 90s was so compelling -- when Tom McElligott (or Luke Sullivan, or any of the great copywriters of that era) wrote a headline, they typically left it to the reader to bounce the text off the visual (close the circle).

Ad Contrarian Says:

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."